Lacson repeats calls for GMA to quit

Opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson, one of President Arroyo’s election rivals, urged her again yesterday to resign, claiming she stole last year’s vote "with impunity."

"Mrs. Arroyo has been catastrophic for the country," said Lacson, who finished third in the May 2004 presidential race. "The economy is in tatters. Social services are undelivered. Corruption has been institutionalized."

He charged that more than half of Filipino households were not getting enough to eat, public debt and unemployment had shot up, public trust had eroded, and favoritism had demoralized the military.

"She did not only steal the presidency, she did it with impunity and on a scale unprecedented in Philippine elections," Lacson said in a speech ahead of Mrs. Arroyo’s annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday.

Outside the Manila Hotel where Lacson delivered his own SONA, hundreds of relatives of his alleged murder victims, led by former police "asset" Marie "Rose Bud" Ong, held a rally to denounce the killings and other human rights abuses.

In his own "state of the nation" analysis, Lacson called on Mrs. Arroyo to resign though he said he supported impeachment as a constitutional option to her stepping down from office.

Mrs. Arroyo has denied manipulating the vote although she admitted discussing her ballot results with an election official before being declared the winner.

Malacañang officials dismissed Lacson’s speech as a "state of imagination."

"Most of it (was) pure unadulterated rhetoric, even slanderous. I wonder what the fuss was all about," said Rigoberto Tiglao, chief of the Presidential Management Staff. "I found it disappointing because Senator Lacson seems to have been working fulltime to dig up every single (bit of) dirt on the Arroyo administration."

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Lacson’s speech was the "height of presumption," and pointed out improvements in the country’s financial market performance in the past days.

"The stock market is steady and the peso is stable. Our dollar reserves are at very comfortable levels. We have a balance of payment surplus that is unprecedented and the interest rate is at its lowest in two years," he said. "These are all signs of investor confidence."

Staunch Arroyo supporter Surigao del Sur Rep. Prospero Pichay criticized Lacson for his speech, describing him as a "frustrated president and a pretend chief executive," referring to his loss in last year’s presidential election.

"Maybe he can try again in 2010 so he can have the privilege of delivering the State of the Nation Address," he said.

Outside the hotel, the murder victims’ relatives warned the public against letting Lacson lead the country.

Their campaign, "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid Movement," is a pun based on Lacson’s "Be Not Afraid" campaign.

"His hands are not clean because he has a closet of skeletons. He is mulling a shortcut to grab power," Ong told reporters.

She said the public should be "more discerning of the true intentions of Lacson," claiming that his track record of alleged involvement in murder cases is a "real cause for fear and an indication that he may pose a clear and present danger to the nation."

Lacson is accused of ordering the summary execution of several members of the Kuratong Baleleng bank robbery gang in 1991 and for complicity in the 2001 murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito.

He is also allegedly involved in the disappearance of an employee of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., Edgar Bentain, in 1999. Bentain has remained missing.

Ong also reminded the public of Lacson’s martial law past. Lacson was with the now defunct Military Intelligence and Security Group, one of the military units accused of executing dissidents and critics of the brutal Marcos dictatorship.

"We stand here today in mute testimony and call for justice to be exacted on Ping Lacson. And we offer our Filipino brothers and sisters this knowledge we have earned from the blood and tears of our loved ones," the victims’ relatives said in a statement.

Broadside

In his speech, Lacson dismissed Mrs. Arroyo’s claim that the opposition does not have any alternative solutions to the country’s problems.

"The President twits the opposition as having no plans for the country, as leading the people to nowhere. That we all know is to oppose, to criticize, and in her own hallucinations — to destabilize."

He then outlined his plans to improve the country’s agriculture, education system, health care, tourism and law enforcement.

"We must rebuild the trust of our people in the institution that supervises our electoral process. Never again must the voice of the people be subverted by the conspiracy of the few."

Lacson, a Philippine Military Academy graduate and former national police chief, claimed there was widespread disenchantment and growing agitation within the military.

He cited reports of officers who staged past coup attempts starting to regroup, but expressed hope that soldiers would avoid bloody confrontations.

The Philippines has a history of botched coup attempts. One alleged group of officers involved in a 1989 failed coup issued a statement late Thursday vowing to bring down the government to save the country "from further ruin."

The names in the statement were apparently aliases, and military spokesman Lt. Col. Buenaventura Pascual said the group calling itself the "Young Officers’ Union" was deactivated after signing a peace accord with the government in 1995.

Mrs. Arroyo said she’s ready to face an impeachment trial to clear her name, and has announced a separate "truth commission" to probe the allegations against her.

But the moves have failed to placate the opposition, which includes supporters of deposed President Joseph Estrada and left-wing groups.

They have been holding almost daily street protests, though the crowds haven’t swelled to the numbers that forced the ouster of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Estrada in 2001.

The seven-week-old crisis enters a new stage on Monday, with Mrs. Arroyo’s scheduled SONA and opposition lawmakers’ plan to file stronger impeachment charges against her.

The opposition says 50 legislators have already signed the impeachment complaint — 29 shy of the required one-third of the House of Representatives needed to send the motion to the Senate for a possible trial. — With Aurea Calica, Cecille Suerte Felipe, AP